Dhaka: Member secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas, Mineral Resources and Power-Port Professor Anu Mohammad has said that the government`s current energy master plan and policy is leading the country down a wrong path.

"The current plan and policy is in no way acceptable to the people as it was prepared to serve foreign interest. It will never be acceptable from environmental and economic point of view," he said while addressing a press conference on the present energy master plan and policy.

National Committee to Save Sundarbans and Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) jointly organised the press conference at National Press Club on Monday, reports news agency UNB.

Prof Anu Mohammad observed that with the declining costs of renewable energy there is huge scope to utilise renewable sources for power generation, but the government is deliberately ignoring it.

In the present power system master plan, the government set a target to generate 40,000 MW power by 2030 where 50 percent will be produced from coal-fired power plants and remaining 50 percent will come from other sources.

Visiting international energy experts and Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis's Director Tim Buckley and Energy Finance Analyst Simon Nicholas presented a keynote paper at the conference titled: 'Bangladesh Electricity Transition: A Diverse, Secure and Deflationary Way Forward'.

In the paper they observed Bangladesh is currently excessively dependent on gas-fired power generation and domestic sources of gas are becoming increasingly unreliable.

Eminent energy expert and Dhaka University Prof Badrul Imam, BAPA Vice President and writer -journalist Syed Abul Maksud, architect Mobasher Hossain, Prof MM Akas and Sharif Zamil also spoke at the press conference.

Prof Anu Mohammad alleged that when Germany, China and India have been working with new innovative ideas to utilise renewable energy to meet their energy needs, Bangladesh is receiving globally abandoned projects and ideas for power generation.

He said India is pushing those projects which were rejected there onto Bangladesh, which is being forced to accept them and move backwards.